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Trust me, it’s science

I have maintained for some time now that some areas of science are rotten to the core.

Areas such as climate, tobacco, obesity and alcohol which are high profile and politically correct are crawling with “studies” that make claims based on false, distorted and just plain invented figures. So called scientists produce results which are designed solely to attract further funding without any regard for the truth.

You almost have to feel sorry for this bugger. Here is a psychologist who was faking his results left right and centre, and why shouldn’t he? After all, everyone else is doing it and it does make research a lot easier when you know the result before you start the study. However, he made one massive mistake – he falsified results in an area that was trivial, where no other “scientists” would be embarrassed or where there was no massive financial investment involved. It was therefore easy to expose his research as it didn’t upset any of the great modern religions of climate, tobacco, obesity or alcohol.

Reading that article is quite interesting if you study it with the great religions in mind. Take for example the statement

“The answer, according to a growing number of statistical skeptics, is that without release of raw data and methodology, this kind of research amounts to little more than “‘trust me’ science,” in which intentional fraud and unintentional bias remain hidden behind the numbers. Only the illusion of significance remains.”

I would interpret this to mean that any research where the figures are deliberately hidden is suspect. And there are examples of this in both the anti-smoking and climate fields, where freedom of information requests are being treated with blind panic.

So next time you read about how sitting next to an obese person will make you fat, or how one cigarette can cause a thousand deaths, think on. What led to those conclusions? How were the results achieved?

Jim C – All I can say is that I am glad you landed in the wastebin. Recovery seems to have worked well?

TT – Those branches of science that don’t involve epidemiological studies or whose results aren’t prearranged with their funders. If I had been sold a little box and been told that it was a computer because some study said it was, then I might be a little skeptical. Fortunately engineers have to rely on proven hard facts when designing computers, and those facts are determined by hard experimentation and rigorous testing.

Cat – I have taken the same route myself. In my book there is a 99% chance that “studies show” is going to lead to a load of bollox which I can safely ignore.

Groandad, believe me a large part of the reason for the existence of such shite masquerading as science is the fact that politicians don’t do their job. If I were ever a minister I would email every organisation and ‘stakeholder’ the ministry had ever had any contact with on day one and warn them never to approach the ministry with a ‘survey’ extrapolated to the entire population, never to stray too far from the truth in order to make a case and never, ever, on pain of death to attempt to blackmail the ministry with emotive argumentation.

A major cost to all western governments is the bizarre situation where some little shyte from some two-bit organisation set up by the indignant for the indignant can demand a meeting with a minister and open up the conversation by saying ‘minister do you believe children’s health should be protected?’
You would not believe how much emotive blackmail is used with the threat of such a two-bit operation immediately running to the media if not placated or indulged with stories of how the minister ‘wants all your children to die’ because he or she hasn’t immediately said they’ll change the law. I wrote a part of a lobby paper some years back and had a jaw dropping moment when I read a later Act of Parliament and recognised some of the sentences I had constructed actually in the legislation. I’m one of the few people I suspect who has actually written part of the law without even realising I was doing it. The system whereby Ministers are actually placating every shyster with a story and an indignancy ends up with huge amounts of public time and money wasted. I can guarantee you that.